Step 4: Draw the long body using two lines to create a football-shape. To make the feathers create a cluster of U-shapes in the middle of your bird and four short lines at the bottom of the body for more feathers.

Interesting Facts about the Blue Crane

The national bird of South Africa, Blue Cranes are one of the small members of the crane family at about 3 or 4 feet tall and weighing 7 to 13lbs. They are only found in South Africa, giving them one of the smallest distributions of any crane even when they migrate. They are also very aggressive during their nesting season, attacking anything that comes too close including: people, cattle, tortoises, even small birds.

Did you know?

Blue Cranes like to setup nests in grasslands and lay their eggs in the middle of the grass or on the bare ground.

While the females incubate the eggs male Blue Cranes will spend their time defending the nest from intruders.

Like other cranes the Blue Crane sometimes dance by flapping their wings, jumping, bowing and tossing grass to relieve stress.

Blue Cranes are losing their habitat to timber production and accident poisoning.

Lesson plan note: Blue Cranes vary in color quite a bit with white to gray heads, various shades of light blue or gray feathers on most of their bodies, with tail feathers that are slate grey to black. Draw a Blue Crane then make copies for students and have them color in the crane themselves. After that put up all of the different cranes so they can see how diverse they are.